Blood Lines (Dresden Files fanfic, Wild Bill Meyers POV)
by cockatoo4169
Summary: Wild Bill Meyers is a Warden of the White Council active in the Dallas area. This story take place during the war with the Red Court, and is contemporaneous with the events of Jim Butcher's novel CHANGES.


Howdy.

My name is William Earl Meyers, Junior.

Call me Bill.

I wear a Grey Cloak and a White Hat, which is one way of saying I'm a lawman, of a sort, and one of the good guys. I cover the territory of Dallas and surrounding areas for the White Council. They also call me to deal with problems that come up elsewhere. And sure enough, I get called upon quite a lot. A man just can't catch a break from it all.

I'm not much of a storyteller, but I've got a tall tale that you need to hear. I'm not ashamed to say it, but I ought to be dead right now. I can't say for sure why I'm still breathing. Just like any other war story, the Generals try to grasp the big picture, and the historians try to figure out what it all means later, but a man on the ground can only tell you what he's seen.

It started when Vanessa Two Crows called me at the crack of dawn, right as I was waking up. Now, I'm not much of a morning person, but when you're at war with an army of bloodsucking vampires, you are up at dawn, one way or the other, like it or not. Truth be told, I was tired to my bones. Tired of fighting, tired of killing, tired of almost getting killed, tired of losing friends, and oh… so tired of watching the youngsters get killed. Fine Wizards and Wardens fresh out of Camp Kaboom, green as twigs. They'd give it their all, but some of 'em never had a chance.

I picked up the phone on the second ring. "Howdy." I may have sounded less chipper than usual.

"Wild Bill."

"Nessa." Her voice made me a bit more chipper, despite No Coffee Yet. Vanessa Two Crows was one fine figure of a woman.

"Something just came up on the Paranet. There's a group of practitioners in Denton. Mostly Minor Talents, but one Ectomancer with a fair amount of skill. They've been targeted by a nest of Reds. They took their kids, Bill."

"Damnit. Not this again."

"Two adults are missing, too. It was a raid on a nursery school yesterday afternoon. One of the women in their circle works there, and that's where most of them send their children. Six of them are gone."

This was one of the Red Court's favorite tactics. Ours was a war of attrition, and the vampires could build their ranks quickly. Wizards couldn't. Young magic users have got to be born, raised, and trained up the old fashioned way. Red Court vamps just have to find some poor soul to bite and Turn. So, it was easy for them to prey on the young and the weak, decreasing our population all around, and make talented Wizards harder to come by. So I'd had to deal with this kind of situation since the War broke out. Texas was in the Front Lines of North America for the whole duration, seeing as how the Bloodsuckers controlled pretty much all of Central and South America and Mexico.

If you've gonna clean out a vampire nest, you need to round up a posse of Evocators and trigger men. A few Holy Relics wouldn't hurt, and if you can lay your hands on it, some ordinance. Napalm works pretty good, too. Better yet, send in Harry Dresden. I've seen the man get angry, and that's not the kind of thing I'd care to see twice.

"I've already asked the Venatori Umbrorum to run recon. Matt Hardcastle and Larry Burjack scoped out the scene and have a preliminary report. Matt asked me to call you in on this one."

"I know Matt Hardcastle. If he wants to take out the nest, why didn't he call me himself?"

"Hmmm." I could hear her smile. "If I had to guess, I'd say he figured you'd get there faster if I was the one who called you."

I snorted a little. "You didn't have to guess, though, did you?"

"No sir, I did not."

Vanessa could read a man's mind just as easily as she could read a recipe for biscuits. Not that she'd need to. Most men are just as simple as biscuits, as she liked to remind me. That woman, though, was anything but simple. She could walk between worlds, barter with spirits, talk to your ancestors, create blessings and charms and wards strong enough to last through winter. She came from an ancient and powerful bloodline of holy men and women, and she chose to stay with that. She never joined the White Council, and I don't blame her.

"All right. Tell Matt to strap up and meet me at the IHOP off I-35, by the UNT campus. I'll call in my contacts in the Fellowship, too."

"All right."

"And if I may, ma'am, I'd like to see you there, as well."

"Me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"On what account?"

"I assure you that my intentions are strictly honorable. I have a tactical possibility I'd like to enhance, and you are uniquely qualified to assist me."

"You disappoint me, Wild Bill. I might prefer it if your intentions were less honorable than that."

Like I said. Nothing simple about that woman. She'd play me like a trout on her line.

We said our goodbyes and I got on with the most important task of the day. Coffee. Black and burned, how I like it. Showered, dressed, and took inventory:

My Stetson. Good for keeping the sun off my head, and establishing my reputation around town. I've inscribed a ward in Enochian around the inside of the band that protects me from most harm, and that's come in handy more times than I can count. I've also charmed it to stay on my head.

My Cloak. It's the badge of office for Wardens of the White Council of Wizards. Blood doesn't stick to it, and that's a mighty fine thing.

My pentacle. An old Texas Ranger's badge that once belonged to my great-grandpa. It was cut from a silver five-peso coin. Comes in real handy against werewolves. And when I give it just a little bit of mojo, it shines with a light that vampires don't care for at all.

My 1851 Colt Navy revolver. Not a real antique, mind you, it's an Italian replica. I wouldn't sully a piece of history by engraving it with mystic sigils and runes like this. Even though it's a fully functional cap-and-ball gun, it's also a very effective magical focus. Just for good measure, I've blessed the ammunition, too. The bullets are enchanted to find and destroy the blood sacs of Red Court vampires. It's not completely impossible to miss with this thing, but I'd have to try.

My Bowie knife, which is how my Warden's sword turned out. It was one of the last ones forged by Captain Luccio before she got body-switched by the Corpsetaker- but that's a whole other story. It's the shortest one she ever made, with a heavy thirteen-inch blade and tang that runs all the way through its staghorn handle. I usually fight with it underhanded, in a southpaw grip. Swordfighters usually don't know what to make of that until I catch their blades with the crossguard and disarm them. This thing's sharp enough to shave with, never gets dull, and it cuts through hostile magic like a ripsaw through warm butter.

There's one more thing I'm fixing to bring to this party, but I'll have to pick it up along the way.

Less than an hour later, I was sitting at the IHOP with a plate of eggs, potatoes, and salsa, and a second cup of coffee. Not as strong, not as burned, not as good. But at least it wasn't a frappucino. It'll be a cold day in hell before anybody forces one of those froo-froo conconctions down my throat.

With me was Matt and Larry from the Umbrorum, and they both favor black nylon tactical gear. It's like having breakfast with half of a SWAT team. I'd invited Ramon Gutiereez and Lupa Branco, of the Fellowship of St. Giles. Both of them are half-vampires, bitten but not blooded, and tattooed up with invisible ink. I'm given to understand it helps them stay in control of themselves when the designs show up… and it mostly works. Vanessa sat primly across the table from me. I was trying a little too hard not to look at her too closely, and she knew it. Matt spoke up first:

"So, as far as we can tell, this was done by a zerg nest. They stormed the nursery school yesterday at sixteen hundred hours, grabbed seven kids and two teachers, and vanished into a storm drain. There's a pumping station… yes, Bill?"

I'd been holding my hand up.

"What's a 'zerg'?"

"Sorry. It's from a video game. Zerglings are low-level hostiles, quickly produced and readily disposable. Individually, they go down pretty quick. They swarm their targets with numerical superiority, and that's it. No leaders, no heroes, no unit cohesion. These nests of newly Turned Bloodsuckers deal out damage at very low cost to the Reds, distract us, and scatter our resources while we're forced to deal with them."

I knew the tactic, but I'd never have known that word. Wizards and computers don't get along. If I ever tried to play an Xbox, it'd burn out faster than a struck match. Before I could let him know I got the gist of it, Lupa decided to chime in.

"We don't think this one's just a zerg attack, as you've called it. We've seen that kind of thing from the Red Court when they want to cause widespread chaos. Typically, they unleash newly blooded vampires on several unimportant, weakly defended targets all at once, and scatter these attacks all over the place. By the time we get to any of the locations, the damage is done and the vampires are dead. Freshly Turned Reds are insane, disoriented, drunk on their new power and heightened perceptions, and they're just as likely to tear each other apart as anyone else. They seldom live for more than a night or two after they're Turned. They're not soldiers. They're ammunition." She paused and looked at her partner.

"Attacks like that almost never result in the capture of hostages," Ramon continued. "They seldom leave any survivors at all. These may or may not have been disoriented fledglings, That's not the point. This place was specifically targeted as a haven for Practitioners, which are high-value victims. The doors were Warded. They did it in broad daylight, and there were no other accompanying raids in other locations. These Reds have either been around long enough to control themselves, at least a little bit, or else they were skillfully handled by a team leader. Maybe both."

Larry, the other Umbrorum, spoke up. I didn't know him. This was the first we'd met.

"The witnesses said the vamps piled out of a van with the windows blacked out. As soon as they were out, the van peeled off and left them. If these Reds were actual personnel, not expendables, why dump them like that? It didn't seem like there was any plan for extraction. They probably expected none of them would survive the raid."

"Maybe, maybe not," said Lupa. "Either way, whoever was driving the van was a handler, not a minion. If they were newbies, they could never have controlled a Renfield, let alone drive a van. Most of the really new ones can't even use doors."

"I have a question." Nessa piped up. "Red court vampires can't stand sunlight, correct?"

"That's right," said Matt.

"Then how could they have made it from the van to the inside of the school? And why did they kidnap their victims rather than just eat them right there?"

"You've just answered your own question," said Ramon. "They can't stand sunlight, not for long. It hurts them before it kills them. They were forced out of the van and instinctively scrambled for the nearest shelter, which was the school."

"Then, once inside, they found their victims," continued Lupa, without a pause. "And killed a few of them, but they couldn't stay. They were still too exposed, due to the plate glass windows. They took their meals 'to go' and made it to the storm drain through the shade of the playground in the back."

"So, now we've got to ask," continued Ramon, "Do we think the kidnapping was part of the plan? Or was that a glitch, and they were meant to kill everyone in the school before self-destructing?"

"Do we call it a 'bug', or a 'feature'?" Matt again. "I can't see how it matters. Either way, we've got a nest of out-of-control bloodsuckers, sitting on an indeterminate number of surviving hostages. We go in, kill the monsters, and with any luck, we'll find one or two of their victims still alive. If they make it through the melee, that is. It'll be over by lunchtime."

Matt seemed awful sure of himself. Larry had his back. Ramon and Lupa each had an eyebrow raised. Vanessa had another question.

"Do we really think anyone from the school is still alive?"

"Yes, maybe," Ramon said. "That's not a good thing. Once they get a belly full of blood, Red Court vampires sometimes hoard whoever's left. They grab anything that still has a heartbeat and throw them in a hole or something like that. Some people will live for days, or weeks, without food, water, sunlight, or anyplace to go to the bathroom. They stay huddled in the dark, covered in their own filth, getting bitten, knowing they're nothing but food. Death could come at any time, or they could be left dangling on the edge of life for one terrifying moment after another." He shuddered, and his tattoos began to darken, a grey just barely visible against his nut-brown skin.

Lupa reached out and placed one pale hand over Ramon's trembling forearm. "Sometimes the survivors go mad. At the very least, you can expect them to have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. And sometimes… they Turn, and they eat their friends. But once in a while, some very lucky few…" she squeezed his arm a little harder, "… find their way through it, and get a chance for payback." Ramon had his eyes squeezed shut, tears just barely forming in the corners. He nodded and rocked in his seat a little, his tattoos fading back out.

"So, anyway, here's the plan." Matt broke the tension and let the two of them have a moment's peace. "We reconned the storm drain. It runs under the street, and it's open at both ends. Plenty of ambient light. It's pretty large, about four feet in diameter, and there's an access panel about halfway along. It goes into the sub-basement of this facility, here." He pulled out a street view photo. "That's a pumping station for the water mains that serve this area. It's chained and locked. Nobody goes in there but the occasional utility worker, once every few months. No sign of disturbance from the street-level access, but there are bloodstains and deep scratches all over the hatch in the storm drain. The lock holding it shut was either bitten or clawed off, but now it's secured from the inside. The bloodsuckers are still holed up in there."

"Matt and I will cover both exit points in the drain pipe, which we'll rig with ordinance," said Larry. "Lupa and Ramon will keep lookout and cover the main doors from the street. You should park right here." He pointed at the photo and looked at Ramon, who set his jaw and nodded curtly. "We don't know that the bloodsuckers are even aware that door exists. They'll be in a dark concrete box full of pipes and rusty puddles. They'll defend the entrance they used to get in, but they've probably ignored the one behind them. So that's where we send our Big Gun." He pointed at me.

"What about the hostages?" asked Vanessa.

"That's why we need Wild Bill to go in. If it turns out that there are no hostages left alive, we'll just toss a few incendiaries in the hole and call it a day. Performing a sweep and clear is dangerous, and it requires sound tactical judgement and tempered force. So, we're bringing a Wizard." He nodded at me. "Your judicious marksmanship would be appreciated."

Matt spoke up again: "The good news is that if any of them are still alive, the bloodsuckers will forget all about 'em once the encounter goes kinetic. So, Bill goes in, does his thing, and takes out as many Reds as he can. When they run, they'll abandon the hostages, and then we initiate the defense and recovery operation. The vamps that make it to the storm drain are ours to deal with. We'll take it from there."

I nodded just once, then looked over at 'Nessa. She didn't use her voice, but told me _"I'm not sure I like this plan"_ using just her eyes. _"Me neither,"_ I sent back, and a twitch of her nose let me know she got it. Then I spoke up.

"I want Vanessa here to scope out the place from the outside. This feels like a trap. If the Reds are in there, she'll know. If any hostages are alive, she'll Sense them. And if anything else is going on, she'll cotton to it. I just want to know the lay of the land before we go in guns blazing."

"You sure?" said Matt.

It was a good question to ask. It's a bad idea to bring Sensitives into a combat zone, or any place that's been disturbed by violence or horror, and this was both. Fledgling bloodsuckers are famous for being messy eaters. Most practitioners who favor mind-magic tend to fold up when such things assault their Senses, and then they become a liability.

"I can do it," she said. "Enough to make a difference, anyway. Bring me into range, and I'll let you know when it gets to be too much. Just be ready to get me out of there. I'll have one of the other Paranetters rendezvous with a getaway car and a blanket. And chocolate. And tequila."

"Fair enough," said Matt. "Let's get going."

Twenty minutes later, we were in the Umbrorum's van, coming up to the block where the nursery school and the pumphouse were. The Denton PD had cordoned off the area with crime scene tape, but no cops were around this morning. No State police or Texas Rangers, either. Huh. You'd think there'd be at least some presence after a newsworthy attack like this, but besides the caw of distant birds, the street was quiet. 'Nessa was next to me in the back of the van, her eyes closed, swaying slightly.

"Bill… I can't get any closer. This whole place, I can feel it… too much. Too much."

"Steady, now, 'Nessa. You don't have to go in. We'll just get close enough for you to see what's in the pump house. That's all. Then you skedaddle."

"Right, I know, it's just… ohh, there's so much blood. So much… There's a trail of it going out the back to the drain. There's the room, oh, they're in there. The children. Four of them. They're so frightened. They're praying. They're crying. They're bleeding. They've been bitten, Bill. They're dying." Tears were pouring down her cheeks.

"The teachers?"

"I don't feel them. I've got nothing. Wait. There's a ghost. There's a sad, sad ghost. It's lost. It's saying no. No. It's saying no." She was shaking uncontrollably.

"How many vampires?"

"Can't. Tell." She was crying now. "Rage. Hunger. Fear. Oh god. It's… I can't…"

"All right. Nothing more to be done, I guess. Time for you to go."

She nodded, gratefully, and snuffled back a big wet wad of tears and snot. We kept going past the scene, dropped off Vanessa, and circled back from the other direction. We parked the van a block and a half away. Ramon and Lupa were in their car, keeping watch. Matt and Larry vanished into the culverts on either side of the pipe, each with a lumpy duffle bag full of weapons and explosives. I strolled up to the pumphouse door. It was locked with a rusty chain. I took the lock in the palm of my hand, felt its weight, felt its age, and I spoke to the metal.

 _All right, you ornery ol' cuss. Wake up._

It creaked at me, a little surprised to be spoken to. I felt it shift its tumblers slightly, feeling for its key.

 _Don't give me none of that, now. You don't need that thing stuck in you._

It felt a little looser now, unsure of itself. A lock that doesn't get used pretty regular doesn't always know what to do right away.

 _Go ahead. Shift yourself around and open up. I ain't got all day. Get to it._

It popped its hasp open with a grind and a click.

 _Thank you kindly._

I slid the chain off the door and tried the handle. This lock was a trifle more accommodating, being looser and well-worn. A few polite shakes and I was in. A narrow landing, a dark stairway going down to another door. I reached out with my Wizard senses, and I felt the barest shadow of what Vanessa Two Crows had felt from a block away in a moving vehicle- the presence of four frightened, desperate children, one sad old ghost… and not even one single vampire.

I did not like this one bit.

I cracked the door open into total darkness. I visualized the Moon, full and bright, high in the sky over the Texas prairie, shining down silver light and casting harsh shadows. I let that image settle over the room, casting a light that only I could see, and revealing a monochrome setting- Pipes of all sizes, from the thickness of a finger to the trunk of a tree, all bolted together and rigged with gauges and valves, and one panel with a few lonely dials and switches on it.

And no children.

Just a few small rag dolls on the floor with scraps of cloth and hair bound to them, along with a photograph of a child's face on each one.

Dog gone it.

Y'see, thaumaturgy works both ways. You can take a poppet- that's a kind of voodoo doll- and make it sympathetically resonant with some other person or thing, using something that carries their essence, like hair or blood or spit, or some personal belonging, and the image of that person. Usually, a Practitioner will do something to the doll, like bind it or damage it somehow, in order to affect the target of the spell. It works because, in a way, the doll _is_ the person. But you can also make a doll that will give off the psychic energy of that person, using the connection between them that flows the opposite way. Vanessa and I had been bamboozled. The psychic noise left by the extreme violence and chaotic impressions left by the amped-up senses of the new bloodsuckers was a smokescreen.

So I was a little bit less than surprised when all the lights snapped on and a whole bunch of cops in black nylon armor burst into the room, all telling me to "freeze," "get down on the ground," "keep your hands in the air," "don't move," and "lie flat on the floor" all at the same time. It's like those guys just wanted any old excuse to shoot me.

They didn't.

Instead, I spent the next several hours in zip-tie handcuffs, bound to a chair in a basement room in some government building, getting worked over by a gang of goons. They broke three of my teeth, and both my eyes were swelled shut so I could hardly see. Those boys didn't skimp on the body blows, either. Turns out they cracked two ribs and bruised a kidney. Didn't ask me any questions, didn't tell me any lies. They just meant to buffalo me.

After they got bored with that, they just left me there to consider my situation for a while. I considered it wasn't all that good. The concussion made it kind of hard to focus. At some point, I noticed they'd put me in a Circle, cutting me off from the regular flow of magic that stretches across the world. I couldn't conjure more than a few unkind words.

I don't know how long it was before the door opened and a skinny woman in her late thirties marched in, wearing an expensive suit and white blouse. Her heels clicked like castanets, her hair was pulled back in a stern bun, and lipstick a shade too dark and red was painted on her smirking face. She had a sheaf of papers in her hand and she seemed overly pleased with herself.

"Well well well. Wild Bill Meyers. You're in a big pile of trouble, Mister."

I spat out a bloody gob of whatever it was, narrowly missing her shoe. She didn't flinch.

"Seeing as how I never got read my rights, never got booked, and those boys you had beatin' the tar out of me weren't locals, I'm gonna go ahead and assume this here is an extrajudicial proceeding."

"Oh, no. It's entirely legal. My name is Concepción Vasquez-Ortega. I'm the Assistant Director with the Department of Homeland Security in this region."

"Aha."

"We've got quite a lot to charge you with, here. Breaking and Entering."

"Place wasn't locked."

"Criminal Trespass."

"No signs posted."

"Unauthorized carry of a firearm."

"Replica pre-1899 black powder, non-centerfire. Perfectly legal, and you know it."

"You were carrying in an obnoxious and threatening manner."

"Don't recall seeing anybody until you folks showed up. Hard to say who'd have felt threatened."

"And your knife. It's a location-restricted weapon, carried within a thousand yards of a school."

"An abandoned school, closed off as a crime scene."

"Still a school. It counts."

"What else you got?"

"Resisting Arrest."

"I didn't, but I suppose that's to be expected."

"Impersonating an Officer of the Law."

"How'd you figure that?"

"This… thing." She held out my pentacle at arm's length, in a clear plastic baggie, as though it was dead and smelly. "The REAL Texas Rangers would take offense at you parading around as one of their own."

"That's an antique. Nobody would mistake it for a modern badge. Besides, I know half those guys personally, and they know me. They won't back you up."

"As a Federal Law Enforcement Official, I get to speak on their behalf, and you don't."

"This just keeps gettin' better and better."

"Oh, I've saved the best for last. Domestic Terrorism. You planted a bomb in a water main pumping station."

"You don't say."

"Oh yes. A very destructive one. Had you succeeded in detonating it, you would have caused irreparable damage to city infrastructure. That's enough for my Federal authority to make you disappear from all the local records. Your capture and detention never happened, officially. We wouldn't want to cause the public to overreact, would we?"

"I recon not." My vision was still pretty fuzzy, so I thought about using my Sight, just to get a handle on the situation. But I really didn't want to see another damned vampire like that, and I figured I knew who she really was. "Seeing as how we're off the record, and I'm a dead man anyway, you mind answering a question?"

She smiled. A gleaming row of too-perfect white teeth shone like pearls.

"Just between friends, you mean?"

"Somethin' like that." I stopped to cough up something I didn't want to spend much time thinking about. "Some of my friends have heard rumors of the Red Court working with a local Warlock. They were calling her 'La Malvada.' We never figured she WAS a vampire. So, I'm just wondering which came first. Were you breaking the Laws of Magic before they Turned you, or after?"

She didn't break her smile.

"Oh, I was quite unaware of my aptitude until after I was reborn. I married into the Ortega family, and my husband Turned me on our honeymoon. It was quite the experience. The Lords of Outer Night taught me everything I know about Magic."

"And when did you join DHS?"

"I was at Quantico when I got married. DHS recruited me from the FBI."

"I take it you're not the only operative to have infiltrated the Feds."

"By no means! Oh Bill, we are absolutely EVERYWHERE. We've got resources in the FBI, the CIA, all over DHS, DOD, MCB, every office of the Pentagon, and plenty of agencies that don't even exist on paper."

"You don't say."

"You really don't know how badly the War is going for you, do you? Edinburgh has fallen. Blackstaff McCoy is dead. The Wardens are in disarray. We are strong in our places of power."

"McCoy? I'd have heard about that."

"It would have happened only about an hour ago. We've been working on that operation for a long time. I won't bore you with the details, but we've taken out his entire bloodline."

Huh. I wasn't aware McCoy even had a bloodline. Of course, most folks in the Senior Council take care to play their cards close to their chests, for reasons just like this. It ain't common to see a curse like that get thrown around, but it can happen. I mean, to power up a spell that kills off an entire lineage… I didn't even want to think about what they'd have to do to raise that kind of energy.

"It's funny, now that we're talking about it. You see, this little encounter we're having was originally meant to be part of that project. We'd planned on taking out a different member of the Senior Council at first. But, a new opportunity presented itself, and it was too good to pass up. We needed to secure a living descendant of the targeted bloodline, and we found one of McCoy's. So not only did we take out their biggest weapon, but my family was able to exact revenge for the murder of our patriarch."

"Good for you."

"Now this is the part you'll find interesting. The original target was Listens-to-Wind. We knew where to find a descendant of his. As a bonus, she also happened to be one of the principle nodes in the support and information network you call the Paranet. She proved to be an elusive target which required an unorthodox stratagem, but we would significantly weaken the Council and disrupt their regular operations just by capturing and killing a young lady named Vanessa Two Crows."

A pair of thugs dragged a barely conscious woman with a bag over her head into the room, and threw her at La Malvada's feet. She yanked the bag off and grabbed her by the hair, holding her head up for my dazed and blurry sight, stretching her throat and pulling a mournful sound from her.

"I see you two know each other." Her too-white teeth gleamed. I may have let my poker face slip.

"I figured the school was just the bait. Thought the target might be me."

"You're a bit slow, aren't you? No. Taking out a Grey Cloak like you was just a nice little plum."

"Well, I suppose I should be glad I count for something."

She let out a wretched peal of laughter. "Oh, this has been fun. I feel I should apologize. I've been so rude, talking your ears off like this, and I know it's considered poor form, but you see… I just LOVE to play with my food."

Just like that, her flesh mask peeled back to show her true face- a gooey twisted mess of nostrils and fangs, like a bat that'd been bobbing for maggots in a vat of old lard. Quick as a snake, she clamped her maw onto Nessa's throat. Nessa went stiff and screamed.

Things happened pretty fast after that, like when the rube at the poker game spots the fifth ace up someone's sleeve, and the guns come out.

The first thing that happened was that Nessa turned into a bear, which is something I did not expect. Neither did La Malvada, who was now latched onto a mouthful of hair and fury. Nessa stood up with the vampire still clinging to her neck, and started throwing the ugly critter around like a rag doll.

That made the two goons that dragged her in drop their flesh masks and let out ungodly hissing noises. Four or five more bloodsuckers piled in through the door to join the fight, but they didn't seem sure what to do.

While all that was going on, I fell over backwards in my chair, which had broken like I'd asked it to. See, I'd spent the last few hours talking to the welds holding it together. They took quite a bit of convincing to give up and let go, and I don't think I made a lot of sense to them. But they'd seen me getting beaten up and tortured, and they eventually came around and agreed that was something they shouldn't be part of. I couldn't do a lot about the zip tie handcuffs, seeing as how they were plastic. I never was good with plastic. Sure, it's of the Earth, but it's got the stink of technology and modern civilization all over it, and it just does not want to be talked to by wizards. So I just brought my wrists down under my ankles as I rolled into a backwards summersault which was something less than graceful. At least it got me out of the Circle with my hands in front of me.

Right about then, the whole back wall exploded and a dozen or so soldiers poured in and started shooting everything that wasn't either a cowboy or a bear. They were big fellas, built like football players, with long hair and beards woven in complicated braids, shouting in some language I hadn't heard before.

In all that confusion, I managed to pull out the one bit of gear the bloodsuckers hadn't taken from me.

A neatly folded, clean, white hankie.

I snapped it open and the room burst white with the bright morning sunlight I'd captured in it. The vampires screamed and burned, stumbled and fell back. La Malvada dropped her hold on Nessa and was flung against the wall, the entire side of her that was towards me scorched down to the bone.

So now you know, folks, about that "one more thing" I had to pick up on my way to the IHOP, and why I needed Nessa to help with it. I didn't think the bloodsuckers would see that ol' trick coming. Glad I was right. We've taught that spell to every recruit that's come through Camp Kaboom, but the Reds haven't seen it used since before the War started. See, in order to catch sunlight in a handkerchief, you have to be Happy… but none of us are. The recruits are scared, the veterans are shell shocked, and everybody's lost somebody. Most of the time I can't do it either… but it turns out that when I'm in the company of Vanessa Two Crows, it's downright easy.

With the bloodsuckers staggering from my sucker punch, I barely had enough time to grab my pentacle off the floor and get a hold of Nessa, who was suddenly back to her old self. The Einherjaren, which is what those boys called themselves, scooped us up like sacks of grain and hustled us back out the hole they'd breached. The vamps were on us half a heartbeat later. I was trying to hold 'em off with the golden light from my pentacle, but my aim suffers mightily when I'm slung belly-down across the shoulders of a three hundred pound Viking at a full gallop.

Night had fallen and the bloodsuckers were all over us like ants at a picnic. We somehow made it to a couple of HumVees and tore out of there without looking back. Red Court vampires are just as fast as HumVees, even when you're throwing lead at them. Someone handed me a gun, but it was one of them ordinary plastic ones that all the cops use now. I could have done a lot better with my revolver. I chanced a look at Nessa while changing magazines. The bite on her neck was pretty bad, and bleeding freely. I put my left hand over it to staunch the blood. No way to tell if she'd Turn. No idea what I'd do if she did.

I gathered my wits about me and closed my eyes. " _Leezh-ne-ol_ ," I said, waving my right hand at the vampire stampede on our heels. A dust storm sprang out of nowhere all around them, blinding them, scattering them, slowing them down.

Not enough.

Right about then is when we hit a tree. Or that's what I thought. We actually hit something called an Ik'k'uox, which is some kind of Mayan Hellhound, and you've never seen an uglier critter. It had a face like a bulldog that's been beat with a shovel, panther claws the size of frying pans, and the rest of it was like a demon rhinoceros had sex with a dump truck. Turns out it can see through dust storms, and it's a whole helluvalot faster than a HumVee.

The Reds had three of 'em.

Something with real big claws peeled the lid of the vehicle, and the boys and I put up a vigorous argument with a whole lot of nine millimeter emphasis, but the bloodsuckers would not be dissuaded. The car ended up on its side, so I stuck my hand through the broken glass and dug my fingers into the dirt beyond the window.

" _Shil-loh Sei,_ " I incanted.

The soil around us melted into quicksand, in a circle about five feet around the wrecked HumVee. The Ik'k'oux sank down to its belly, trapping all four of its legs, bellowing in frustration. Most of the vamps around us were waist-deep and immobilized, but it didn't take 'em long to start breaking free. The bullets were doing something. I was having better luck making local rocks fly around and break their skulls open, but I was burning magic fast, I didn't have my focus items, and there were just too many of 'em. Three of the Einherjaren were down, two more were still with us. Nessa was mercifully out of it. At least she wouldn't die screaming, and I would get to die fighting. Just the way it should be. I started preparing my death curse. It'd been careless of La Malvada to give me her Name from her own lips. Figured she wouldn't enjoy it when she was never able to feed again.

Speak of the she-devil, and the she-devil appears. The hostiles parted and revealed the ugly one with half her body a mass of livid burn scars, headed right for me. I was out of bullets, out of magic, out of options, and out of hope. Her jaws were open, her forked tongue lashing out wildly, ready to eat my face. My death curse was on a hair trigger ready to fly, when all of a sudden, she stopped.

She looked a little confused, for half a second.

Her heart exploded out of her chest, along with that of every other vampire. For a moment, each one was a fountain of blood. Then, their black, rubbery bodies all shriveled down to lifeless husks.

"Huh." I said.

The remaining two Einherjaren seemed to concur.

Forty-five desperate minutes later, Nessa was unconscious in the ER with two units of plasma going into her arm, hooked up to a lot of beeping machines that I figured I'd better not get real close to. The Einherjaren never made it to the hospital. A flock of real tall, good-looking women rounded 'em up and took 'em away somewhere.

The docs gave me some painkillers, wrapped my ribs, and wanted to keep me for observation. I spent about two hours trying to make up some excuse to leave, then they quit asking and let me out. Seems a Doctor Joseph L. Wind had approved my discharge. He was waiting for me outside.

I limped over to where he was standing barefoot in the grass beyond the traffic circle where the ambulances unload. He was moving his toes, digging in the dirt with them, and looking up into the night sky.

"Heard about what you tried to do for Vanessa," he said. "You have my thanks."

"Wish I could have done a better job, sir. I don't know how it is we lived through that. What in tarnation happened, anyway?"

"Long story. The short version is Harry Dresden happened. He found a way to make the curse they were casting backfire on them."

"Hold up. You mean the bloodline curse they used on McCoy? La Malvada said they'd already cast it, and McCoy is dead."

He snorted. "La Malvada. She must like to gloat. No, her timing was wrong. That old Hillbilly is still with us. I just left him in Chichen Itza. Still working his old tricks."

"But that curse was supposed to take out an entire lineage. If it got cast on the Red Court…"

"The Red Court is dead. All of them. Everywhere. War's over, son."

I didn't rightly know what to say about that. Do not EVER let Harry Dresden get upset at you.

"You know, they were going to point that curse at you. Through Vanessa."

"I guessed as much, when I realized they took her. She is my great-great-granddaughter."

"Thanks for sending in the Viking squad."

"That wasn't me."

"That wasn't… then who sent them?"

"Her other great-great-grandfather." He wiggled his feet in the dirt some more. "I've been asking about you. Mother loves you. You pay her proper respect, and she grants you her favor." He turned his eyes skyward. "Father thinks you're funny. A real hoot."

"Well, that's good to know."

"You ready to do this, cowboy?" He turned to face me.

"Do what?" But I'd already met his eyes.

I don't rightly know what he saw in the soulgaze. And I can't rightly say what I saw, either. I saw the Land, this whole world, stretching on for thousands of miles, but somehow still small, still fragile. I saw the Lives, every animal, every person, every breath of air, every beating heart. I saw such pain, such suffering, such love.

I can't think of any other man I'd rather have on the Senior Council.

"You take care, now, son." He said. "Take care of yourself. Take care of her. Get some sleep. If you can."

Then he turned into a bird and flew off.

Nobody got a lot of sleep that night. Seems everybody's dreams got turned into some kind of horror movie, all over the world. Cities were in flames. All kinds of important people had gone missing. The Cartels imploded and caused a few civil wars. Only Nessa had it pretty good, being almost dead. Lupa and Ramon lived through it, by the way. Their vampire essences burned away like mist in the early morning, leaving them out of sorts for a while, but eventually they came around. Matt and Larry made bond and their involvement was quickly and quietly forgotten, along with the rest of the terrorist plot that never officially happened. We found my Cloak and Bowie knife in the trunk of the government car issued to AD Concepción Vasquez-Ortega. Seems La Malvada liked to keep trophies of the Wardens she'd killed. Never did find my gun, or my hat. It would take some time and effort, but I could replace those things. I really liked that hat, though.

Vanessa woke up three days later, in the wee hours. I met her at her house, just before dawn.

"That bitch roofied my tequila," was the first thing she said to me.

"You turned into a bear."

"I don't remember doing that."

"It was quite something."

"I can do a bison, too. Still working on a raven."

"Hmph. And I thought I was the big gun."

"You do all right, Wild Bill. You do just fine."

"I met your great-great-grandfather. You never told me about him."

"Um. Which one?"

"Wizard Listens-to-Wind. I'm not too clear about the other one. I understand he sent the team that gave us a dustoff."

"Yeah. That's him."

"You're not gonna tell me who he is, are you?"

"You'll figure it out. Eventually. Maybe."

"Well. Good thing he was keeping an eye on you."

She just looked at me kind of funny.

"What?"

"Nothing."

We were quiet, for a while. Then we felt it coming, that change of energy that stirs right around daybreak. Without another word, we wandered outside and faced East, hand in hand.

Folks, I have to tell you- there's nothing in this world like a Texas sunrise.


End file.
